Paid campaigns, UTM tags and conversion attribution
UTM parameters are query string tags you add to URLs so Plausible can tell you which campaign, channel or source sent a visitor. Without them, traffic from newsletters, paid ads and social posts often shows up as Direct or under a referrer domain with no further detail.
The five UTM parameters Plausible supports
| Parameter | What it tracks | Example value |
|---|---|---|
utm_source | Which site or platform sent the traffic | newsletter, google, twitter |
utm_medium | The marketing channel | email, cpc, social |
utm_campaign | The campaign name | spring-sale, product-launch |
utm_content | Distinguishes multiple links within the same campaign | banner-top, text-link |
utm_term | The paid search keyword | analytics+tool |
utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign are the most commonly used. utm_content and utm_term are optional and useful mainly for paid search or campaigns with multiple link placements.
A tagged URL looks like this:
https://yourdomain.com/landing?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=may-2025
Where to view UTM data in Plausible
- Top Sources shows
utm_sourcevalues alongside referrer domains. See how the Sources and Campaigns tabs work for more detail on filtering and channel groupings. - Campaigns shows
utm_campaignvalues and their traffic - All five parameters are available as filters so you can slice any metric by campaign, medium or source
- Attribution is first-touch within a session: the UTM from the first pageview of a session is credited. If a visitor arrives from a tagged link mid-session, it is ignored.
A session stays active for 30 minutes after the last pageview. To measure which campaigns actually lead to signups or purchases, combine UTM tracking with goal conversions.
Naming best practices
Use lowercase consistently. Plausible treats Google and google as two different sources. Pick one casing and stick to it across your team.
Use hyphens as separators. Spaces get URL-encoded as %20 and underscores are easy to misread in reports. spring-sale is cleaner than spring_sale or spring sale.
Be consistent across campaigns. If you used email as the medium in January, do not switch to e-mail in March. Inconsistent values split your data into separate rows.
Tag every link in paid campaigns. Untagged links from ads or emails show up as Direct traffic or under the referrer domain with no campaign detail.
Building UTM links
Use Plausible's UTM builder to construct tagged URLs without typos. Any spreadsheet template or other tool works just as well as long as the output follows the standard query string format.
Troubleshooting: UTM not showing in Plausible
UTMs only attribute on the first pageview of a new session. If the visitor already has an active session when they click your tagged link, the UTM is recorded in the URL but not attributed. Test with a fresh browser profile or after 30+ minutes of inactivity.
Check for redirects that strip query parameters. Some landing page platforms, link shorteners or server-side redirects drop query strings before the final URL loads. Open the tagged link in a browser and confirm the UTM parameters are still present in the address bar on the destination page.
Check your Plausible script settings. If you have the stop-tracking-utm-tags option enabled, Plausible strips UTM parameters before recording the pageview. This is a privacy feature and means UTM data will not appear in your dashboard.